


The Soft Lessons of a Hard World

by Vana



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Poisoning, Post-Series, When Good Tyrells Go Bad for the Sake of the Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2014-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-01 10:17:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2769386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vana/pseuds/Vana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stannis sits the Iron Throne and an attempt is made on his life. His Lord Hand takes full responsibility for failing to protect his king.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Soft Lessons of a Hard World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [linndechir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/linndechir/gifts).



> This was inspired by a prompt from [linndechir](http://archiveofourown.org/users/linndechir/pseuds/linndechir) on the LJ got-exchange community. I didn't want to post it on the comm because I wanted her to be able to use that prompt again instead of its being wasted on this little fic. ;)

“Take him to the dungeon,” Davos said, his voice nearly breaking. Loras Tyrell, his face scarred beyond all recognition, snarled a cold angry sound as the chains clanked together. He was more Hound than Knight of Flowers now. “Put him in a cell.” 

Davos had heard those words long before: his own king had spoken them so long ago it was like a frozen dream. And now that king lay dying, or rusting away in his iron bed of iron blood. 

It was bloody, this business of poison. It was bloody and it was sickening. Only Davos would change the king’s bedclothes, though the maester scolded — Grand Maesters, because only they were fit to serve Stannis Baratheon now. Men with fifty years’ service to the realm bowed and begged to clean the red-flecked, foul-smelling bedpan of the king. Maesters with rings of gold and chains of metals Davos would never be able to identify hovered around the bedside, listening for a change in breathing, feeling for a change in fever.

The poison was not only one poison, but a desperate admixture of three, Grand Maester Pylos had said. Though he was still young as Grand Maesters went, Pylos was wiser than many a one King’s Landing had seen in years, long before the Baratheon reign had begun or even the Targaryen. Davos remembered his kindness to Devan — to all of them — after Maester Cressen had been killed. And so it was to Pylos that Davos went, sometimes three times an hour, to ask him once again whether he thought the king would survive the night. Would survive the attempt at his life by the man who had been Ser Loras Tyrell, whom Davos had allowed into the Red Keep out of pity for his injuries and because he still mourned his Renly. And it was that sorrow that had simmered, built and finally annealed itself into a hard and glowing rage that waited until the right moment to burst, and when it did, it burst inside the body of Stannis Baratheon, the one true king of the Seven Kingdoms who sat the Iron Throne at last.

And it had happened right under the eye of the most loyal Hand who had ever served. Davos was not certain of much, but he was certain of that — as sure as he was that he himself was to blame for letting Stannis suffer, perhaps for letting Stannis die. 

Once, alone in front of Pylos, he let the tears flow. Only once. 

“I did it, Pylos. I killed him.”

“No, Lord Davos … Ser Loras—“

“It was me,” Davos had said hopelessly. “I should have been watchful. I should not have trusted the boy … the man. The man Loras had become. I thought only of his love for Renly. I should have known.”

The maester tried to console him with words that were wise and yet stupid, meaningless to Davos, wracked as he was with grief. He hunched over Pylos’ work table and wished he could become as dead as it was, all cold stone and board. It would be better than this.

“You must be strong for Father.”

Davos jerked his head up. How long had Princess Shireen been there? She was half a maester herself, always studying with Pylos, always shadowing his work, always going unnoticed. Davos would never have let himself say what he had said if he had known she was there. 

“Princess,” he began.

“Please, Lord Davos. … You are his knight still.”

* *

The king dreamed of living dragons carved of ice, of the sea-stained man-child with gore in his hair and in his teeth, of dead boys who sailed dead ships at the bottom of a dead bay. And then he woke, and spit and bled, and slept again. 

A fortnight passed thus. Eventually his mouth was too dry to bark weak orders at the maester — Cressen, that old fool, he should be in bed … no, Pylos … so young, for so much … or was it his squire Devan? Jon Snow or Justin Massey or … the Slayer … what was his name … drifted in and out of his room or his consciousness. The fat boy at the Wall was not at the Wall. King Stannis had sent him away. And then the fat boy had helped him win his throne. Only there was one always at his side — had always been, would always be. But where was he now?

“Davos,” he called once with lips silent as a crypt. But no one heard. The world was pain, the world was death and blood and loss. Of course Davos was not a part of this world.

The next time he came to himself, his daughter sat near him. He scowled at her through his relief. “Shireen,” he said. “What do you do here? What of the …” he coughed violently, sitting up, wincing at the pain when he did so and despising it. “… what of my kingdom?”

“Ser Davos has it well in hand,” she said, and she almost smiled. She was so grown now, a woman of twenty, beautiful despite the scars and wise despite her fools of parents, the king thought. 

“I called for him,” Stannis told her. His voice sounded angry and tired, but he was thoughtful. “Why did he not come?”

“None heard you call for him,” Shireen said gently. “My lord father, not a one has heard you speak these many days. Perhaps you dreamt it.”

“I did not dream it. Send him to me if you will, daughter.”

The princess bowed. Though his eyes were veiled with fatigue and illness, he saw that Shireen’s own had filled with tears. They were as blue as ever a Baratheon’s had been. “I shall.”

* * 

Finally, Lord Seaworth sat by the side of his king; finally, King Stannis was in his right mind enough to be aware of this. The relief was something Davos had never before known. 

“Come, Lord Hand, tell me what has happened during my illness.”

“What …what do you remember, Your Grace?”

Stannis twitched his mouth impatiently. “What is there to remember? I fell ill, of a sudden. I coughed, and I vomited before the court, and I fell upon the ground like a common drunkard. Pylos fussed over me and I dreamed … strange dreams, Davos.” He fell silent.

Davos wet his lips. Something in his belly was spreading dread and fear. “Your Grace, do you know the cause of your illness?”

“Pylos has told me little and less,” the king said. “He is close-lipped, that one, but this time especially so.” His sharp eyes caught Davos’. “Ser, what do _you_ know?”

He did not want to — no, he was incapable of telling a lie to Stannis, whether king or young lordling. Davos had no way to ever hide the truth from this man. Nor would he desire it. He took a long breath. _This will mean my head, after all these years._

“The Tyrell boy,” he began. 

“Loras, yes.” Stannis shook his head. “My brother’s knight … now look what he has become.”

“It is worse than you think, Your Grace. … Ser Loras,” Davos closed his eyes and spat out his next words all in a rush. “Ser Loras slipped a poison tincture into Your Grace’s wine. Under my very nose he did it. … You could have died. You almost did. Loras Tyrell is in your dungeons, but I belong there myself … again.”

“Speak sense, ser,” snapped Stannis. “My Kingsguard tastes the food and wine. Horpe would have allowed no fouled wine to pass. Unless he was a part of it?”

“I had told Horpe to let it be,” Davos said miserably. “He becomes so maudlin when drunk. And he becomes drunk at the slightest—”

“At the slightest sip of Dornish red, yes,” Stannis finished. “This is why I rarely drink anything stronger than water. … So it comes to this, onion knight. You prevailed on me out of your softheartedness to allow Loras Tyrell to court; you took the liberty of dismissing one of my Kingsguard from his duty, leading to an attempt on my life; and you come to my sickbed to tell me of this … I would have merely thought it a fell illness, perhaps a plague.” He paused, looking into Davos’ eyes as though the gaze would bore through his soul. “You never could tell a falsehood.”

“I have told plenty, Your Grace,” Davos said, holding Stannis’ gaze even through his shame and trepidation. If this were the last time he ever looked upon his king, he would not break the moment for anything. “But never to you.”

Astonishingly, the king reached a hand out to Davos. It was thin, almost as thin as when they had first met at Storm’s End and Stannis had been starved nearly to death. It was cold, and on instinct Davos took it between both of his own, pressing them together and willing his own warmth to heal Stannis.

Stannis closed his eyes for the barest moment. Then: “You have suffered much, onion knight.” 

“Your Grace—”

“Let me speak, ser,” the king said. “Do you think I cannot tell on your face what it has cost you, this business with the Tyrell lad? Do you think I cannot see every hour you wished yourself in my place? That I cannot imagine your grief? Men think me cold-hearted,” he went on, “but I am not a fool. And you are _my_ liege man.” 

Davos shivered at just how true that was. “You know that I am, Your Grace.”

“My first and best knight,” Stannis said. “If I were blind to you, I would be blind to my kingdom, to my people.”

“Your Grace, I am at fault,” and now the words tumbled out like a waterfall; Davos was powerless to stop them. “You did not want Tyrell here and I argued for the love he bore your brother … and you allowed it, and then I told Horpe … Horpe could have tasted the wine, would only have become slightly ill … but you …”

“I drank a full swallow,” said Stannis dryly, though there was something strange in his voice. “I was that loath to dine with Tyrell. But tell me, Davos. You speak of my brother and Loras. If someone had … if something had caused my death,” he said, carefully avoiding any specifics of Renly’s downfall, “would you come to their castle and murder the one you believed responsible? Whether a king or a peasant? Or a woman?”

Even weak and emaciated, even more dead than alive for weeks, Stannis could shock Davos into silence. “I …”

“I will tell you,” the king said. “You would not. And I will tell you why not: Because you _cannot know the truth_.”

Davos felt as though the conversation was getting away from them. “I know the truth of what Loras Tyrell put in your wine,” he said. “And how Pylos saved your life. And how my own life is forfeit for my neglect of your safety. I accept your justice,” he said, bowing his head. “It has never been less than sound.”

“Look at me, onion knight,” Stannis commanded, “ _Davos._ I am not ordering you to die. I am the king now, no common lord. If I put to death every man who had anything to do with an attempt upon my life, I would have no one left to rule, let alone to serve me. But since you are so convinced you deserve punishment, I will provide you one.”

Davos looked up. “You are merciful,” he murmured. “They say you are not.”

Stannis scoffed. “No,” he said, “I am cruel after all. _You_ are to decide the punishment for Loras Tyrell.”

“Sire, I couldn’t—“

“You are the King’s Hand and you know the crime Tyrell has committed. His life is in your hands as you put yours in mine own a few moments ago.”

But just then, the fate of Loras Tyrell was the farthest from Davos’ mind. Davos had not let go of Stannis’ hand, and he held it now all the tighter. “You want the truth from me,” he said carefully. He looked at his king, and Stannis’ face was strangely soft. “I placed my life in your hands years ago.”

Stannis pressed his hand into Davos’ steadily. Something was sealed between them, even stronger than before, tempered in the fire of the danger they had both seen. “Yes, Davos,” he said. “As I placed mine in yours.”

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to the most awesome [shadowsfan](http://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowsfan/pseuds/shadowsfan) for the beta!


End file.
